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(98) Now the Heart signifies the Sun, which is the Beginning of Life in this outward Body of this World. And now thou canst not say, that the animated or soulish Birth goes away or departs from the Heart, whilst the Body stands in the Mobility or Life.

(94) For when the Light is generated, it is generated in the Midst or Center of the Body, as a Heart or Spirit out of all Powers, and there it stands and remains in the Place where it had its Beginning, and goes forth through all the Powers.

(38) In the Middle, or central Fountain or Well-spring, which is the Heart, where the Birth rises up, the astringent or harsh Quality rubs itself with the bitter and hot; and there the Light kindles, which is the Son, of which it is always impregnated in its Body, and that enlightens and makes it living.

(13) Since the superior (or spiritual) center is in the midst of the other two, its analogue in the physical body is the heart--the most spiritual and mysterious organ in the human body. The second center (or the link between the superior and inferior worlds) is elevated to the position of greatest physical dignity--the brain. The third (or lower) center is relegated to the position of least physical dignity but greatest physical importance--the generative system. Thus the heart is symbolically the source of life; the brain the link by which, through rational intelligence, life and form are united; and the generative system--or infernal creator--the source of that power by which physical organisms are produced. The ideals and aspirations of the individual depend largely upon which of these three centers of power predominates in scope and activity of expression. In the materialist the lower center is the strongest, in the intellectualist the higher center; but in the initiate the middle center--by bathing the two extremes in a flood of spiritual effulgence--controls wholesomely both the mind and the body.

(5) For as soon as his qualifying or fountain Spirits in the Framing of the Body begun to qualify or operate, and to generate themselves according to the Right of Nature, then rose up the Flash of Life in the Heart in the sweet Spring or Fountain-Water, and so the royal Body was ready furnished or compleat, and the Spirit went forth in the Heart from the Light through the Mouth into the Heart of God.

(113) And it is rightly the Brain in the corporeal Government of this World, from whence the Senses and Reason are generated, also all Meekness and Wisdom in natural Things; but the right and holy Spirit in Man, is generated in the hidden Heaven in the Water of Life.

(23) I explain: A living body is illuminated by soul: each organ and member participates in soul after some manner peculiar to itself; the organ is adapted to a certain function, and this fitness is the vehicle of the soul-faculty under which the function is performed; thus the seeing faculty acts through the eyes, the hearing faculty through the ears, the tasting faculty through the tongue, the faculty of smelling through the nostrils, and the faculty of sentient touch is present throughout, since in this particular form of perception the entire body is an instrument in the soul's service.

The vehicles of touch are mainly centred in the nerves- which moreover are vehicles of the faculty by which the movements of the living being are affected- in them the soul-faculty concerned makes itself present; the nerves start from the brain. The brain therefore has been considered as the centre and seat of the principle which determines feeling and impulse and the entire act of the organism as a living thing; where the instruments are found to be linked, there the operating faculty is assumed to be situated. But it would be wiser to say only that there is situated the first activity of the operating faculty: the power to be exercised by the operator- in keeping with the particular instrument- must be considered as concentrated at the point at which the instrument is to be first applied; or, since the soul's faculty is of universal scope the sounder statement is that the point of origin of the instrument is the point of origin of the act.

Now, the faculty presiding over sensation and impulse is vested in the sensitive and representative soul; it draws upon the Reason-Principle immediately above itself; downward, it is in contact with an inferior of its own: on this analogy the uppermost member of the living being was taken by the ancients to be obviously its seat; they lodged it in the brain, or not exactly in the brain but in that sensitive part which is the medium through which the Reason-Principle impinges upon the brain. They saw that something must be definitely allocated to body- at the point most receptive of the act of reason- while something, utterly isolated from body must be in contact with that superior thing which is a form of soul of that soul apt to the appropriation of the perceptions originating in the Reason-Principle.

Such a linking there must be, since in perception there is some element of judging, in representation something intuitional, and since impulse and appetite derive from representation and reason. The reasoning faculty, therefore, is present where these experiences occur, present not as in a place but in the fact that what is there draws upon it. As regards perception we have already explained in what sense it is local.

But every living being includes the vegetal principle, that principle of growth and nourishment which maintains the organism by means of the blood; this nourishing medium is contained in the veins; the veins and blood have their origin in the liver: from observation of these facts the power concerned was assigned a place; the phase of the soul which has to do with desire was allocated to the liver. Certainly what brings to birth and nourishes and gives growth must have the desire of these functions. Blood- subtle, light, swift, pure- is the vehicle most apt to animal spirit: the heart, then, its well-spring, the place where such blood is sifted into being, is taken as the fixed centre of the ebullition of the passionate nature.

(105) III. Thou canst not deny, but that the Brain in the Head in a Creature is the Power of the Heart, for from the Heart all Powers rise up into the Brain, from whence, in the Brain, the Senses of the Heart exist. The Brain in the Head takes its Original from the Power of the Heart. Now observe,

(97) I. Behold! thou canst not deny it, that the Life in a Creature exists in the Heat of the Heart, and in that Life also stands the Light of the animated or soulish Birth or Geniture.

(101) II. Thou canst not deny neither, but that the Gall in a Creature is not exited from the Heart, and yet is the Mobility or Stirring of the Heart, by a Vein that goes from the Gall to the Heart, from whence the Heat exists. But it has its first Original from the Flash of Life, and so when the Life generates itself in the Heart, and the Light rises up in the Water, then the Fire-crack goes before, which rises up out of the Anxiety of the Water in the Heat.

(92) For as the Father generates the Son out of his Power, and as the Son shines back in the whole Father; so in like Manner the Power of thy Heart, of thy Veins, and of thy Brain, generates a Light which shines in all thy Powers in thy whole Body. Open the Eyes of thy Mind, consider it, and you shall find it so.

(40) The Heart in Man signifies the Heat, or the Element of Fire, and it is also the Heat; for the Heat in the whole Body has its Original in the Heart.

(4) That body again in man is the heart within man, for in it the prânas (which are everything) rest, and do not go beyond.

(107) Now here it stays, and qualifies, mixes, or unites with the Spirit of Life in the Heart, and is a royal Seat of the Spirit of the Heart, for thus far the Spirit of the Heart's Power presses forth, and there is it approved.

(23) For the Fountain of all Powers floweth in the Heart, as it does also in Man or to- in the Head it has its Princely Seat, where it sees all, smells all, and feels all.

(57) For the Light is in the Midst or Center of the Birth or Geniture, and is the Place of Life, wherein the meek Life of God is generated from or out of all the Powers of the Father, and in the same Place the Holy Ghost goes forth from the Father and the Son.

(37) Thus it is also in Man, when one qualifying or fountain Spirit rises up, then it touches all the other, and sees all the other, for it rises up in the middle or central Fountain, or Well-spring of the Heart, where, in the Heat, the Flash of Light kindles itself, wherein the Spirit in its rising up, in the same Flash, sees through all the Spirits.

(94) yet it does not therefore follow, that there is a Disunion or Discord among them: For the very innermost deepest Birth or Geniture in the Heart or Kernel is only and altogether so, which no Creature can apprehend in the Body; but in the Flash, where the hidden Spirit is generated, there it will be apprehended; for that is also generated in such a Manner, and in such a Power as is here mentioned.

(49) For the human Flesh is, and resembles Nature in the Body of God, which is generated from the other six qualifying or fountain Spirits, wherein the qualifying or fountain Spirits generate themselves again, and show forth themselves infinitely, wherein Forms and Images rise up, and wherein the Heart of God, or the holy clear Deity in the middle or central Seat, generates itself above Nature in that Center, wherein the Light of Life rises up.

(9) For the seventh Spirit is the Body, and the other six are the Life, and in the middle Center is the Heart of Light, which the seven Spirits continually generate as a Light of Life; and that Light is their Son; and the boiling Mobility, or Penetration through all the Spirits, expands itself aloft in the Heart, in the Exit or Rising up of the Light.